


Do You Remember That Birthday Cake?

by madeinessos



Category: Us (Movie 2019)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Chromatic Yuletide, Gen, Minor Adelaide Wilson/Gabe Wilson, Minor Russel Thomas/Rayne Thomas, Misses Clause Challenge, Missing Scene, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Non-Linear Narrative, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21835375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madeinessos/pseuds/madeinessos
Summary: They ate half of the cake before going to Santa Cruz beach. It was round, a lucky shape, and brimmed with the richness of chocolate. In vivid red loops it said, 'Happy Birthday Addie!'Rayne does remember. In terribly unrelenting detail.
Relationships: Rayne Thomas & Adelaide Thomas | Red, Rayne Thomas & Adelaide Wilson
Comments: 10
Kudos: 39
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Do You Remember That Birthday Cake?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BabaTunji](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BabaTunji/gifts).



“Would you like to talk about the birthday cake now?”

Rayne paced to the other side of the office, her arms crossed tight, and said nothing. Instead she took a deep breath. Then another, willing to ease the sudden clenching in her chest. She was terribly out of practice. Not young, that clenching, but neither was it old. It had been born many summers ago on the brink of a thunderstorm. It was familiar. But, for quite some time, it had also been silent. Now it shot out from some dark sleeping place with its usual ferocity.

Her bangles dug into her ribs. Cold sweat lapped at her temples.

She’d thought she was ready.

Rayne leaned against the deep blue curtain, a cool, wet, soothing blue, before peering out from the casement window.

The row of sunflowers was freshly watered. Their eager, upturned faces were dewy. Crumpling fistfuls of the curtain – and dimly aware that it didn’t overcome her, the urge to yank down the entire thing so that she could have swathes of soothing blue – Rayne watched the flowers for a long while.

They were swaying, the sunflowers; they were seeking, hunting.

*

One summer, at around two in the afternoon, Rayne’s daughter brought home a young man for the first time. That was something of an event. It was notable. Because not counting the sleepovers with a best friend all those years ago, not counting all those noisy play dates with Saadia which had stopped after that night in Santa Cruz on Addie’s eleventh birthday, it was the first time that Addie brought home anyone at all.

It also happened to be Addie’s birthday.

“Mama,” she said with her quiet smile. “This is Gabe. My boyfriend.”

This Gabe was a tall boy. Neat. Carefully casual, carefully stylish. He pushed his glasses up his nose with, from what Rayne could see, a fair amount of apprehension which was immediately tucked away when he put on a wide smile and held out his hand. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Thomas.” His words were liberally coated with politeness. How eager was he to be liked. How irksome.

Rayne raised her brows and firmly shook his hand. “Well, well,” she said in crisp tones, not bothering to alleviate his clumsily buried nervousness. “Good afternoon.”

“Very pleased to meet you, Ma’am. I was excited; Addie talks about you all the time.”

Rayne felt her lips twitch. She slid her gaze back to Addie just as Addie swayed towards her and clasped her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.

A beat passed.

During which Rayne took in her daughter. Addie, tucking a braid behind her ear. Addie’s heart-shaped face, so like Rayne’s, glowing under a wide-brimmed hat. Addie’s lips, no longer quivering with trapped words.

Then Rayne relented. She squeezed back; gentleness, however, was an acquired habit for her.

“And did she tell you?” Rayne said. She gestured for them to come in. “That it’s her birthday? My Addie here can be shy.”

Gabe laughed. “Yeah, she did, she did.”

It was a good afternoon. An afternoon that was kind to Rayne and to her daughter. And on this day, of all days. It was not unlike a wave from God, was it? Rayne could feel it when she noted the pair of sunglasses hanging from Addie’s white summer blouse, when she caught the whiff of coconut sunscreen when Addie hugged her tightly, both marks that her daughter had been out enjoying her favourite season on her birthday. She could feel it when she led them to the sitting room where the mantelpiece was still adorned with blessed palm fronds and a silver-framed photograph of Addie’s final ballet recital. She could feel it when she brought out the triple chocolate cake with glossy-red cherries, Addie’s favourite, and when Addie set down bottles of Rayne’s favourite beer, and when Gabe opened a small box of Medjool dates. She could feel it when Gabe laughed heartily after she had remarked, “Well, well. Our favourite dates. You’ve done your homework, I see.” She could feel it when Addie, still with that small content smile, said, “I was the one who asked him out, Mama. We were doing a paper. He’s a council member, those types, you know, I thought he’d be insufferable. But he can be quiet, too. Imagine that. He said – he said we don’t have to be talking all the time. If that’s what I want.” Rayne could feel it when Gabe only beamed and nodded at that, and added, “We had a post-exams lazy day for our first date, right, and I made her banana-cream French toast. And she’s real careful with her words, Mrs. Thomas. Like she weighs them. Thoughtful, yeah? And I thought, okay! Yeah, yeah, let’s be thoughtful together,” before chortling again. Rayne could feel it as she and Gabe talked all afternoon, and talked, and talked; as Addie occasionally put in her thoughts without prompting, all the time angled towards them, quietly absorbing their words, radiant and content.

Healed, Rayne liked to think.

It was a kind afternoon. More soothing than sleepless prayers, and sweeter than a fistful of Medjool.

*

“Oh, that’s so sweet!”

Rayne smiled down at the girls. Their neighbour, Saadia, was grinning and had her clasped hands pressed against her chin. Addie was bouncing on her feet, the red ribbons on her hair bouncing as well, and talking a mile a minute,

“And Saadia and me, we had them wear red because it’s a happy colour, right, Saadia? And they got married on a Monday, because why not, they don’t go to school anymore, right, Saadia? And we have flowers, and the cake, see, Mama? And we both married them –”

“They live on another planet, Mrs. Thomas,” Saadia put in. “They have no Mondays there.”

“Yeah,” continued Addie, “and we used our last names. So my doll, she’s now called Mrs. Zahlan-Thomas.”

“And mine’s Mrs. Thomas-Zahlan.”

They were both giggling. In fact, they had not stopped giggling; they were already laughing when Rayne, carrying a tray with cold apple juice, plantains fried with palm oil, and Medjool, swept into Addie’s bedroom. The big dollhouse was on the floor. Pink and white, strewn with petals and crushed crepe paper, it looked like a meticulously-carved cake, which was rather fitting since it happened to be Addie’s tenth birthday. Addie and Saadia had been holding their dolls, and the dolls had been kissing, apparently.

It was moments like this that Rayne loved about motherhood.

And only moments like this.

Carefree moments. Laughter and the scents of good food lazily drifting across jade green walls and polished oaken flooring. Something to enjoy whenever she glanced away from her work and other hobbies.

Rayne had never really thought about motherhood. She had been absorbed with this new country as a kid, and later on with her translations. And so it was, in many ways, an afterthought.

Russel Thomas had been a matter of practicality and convenience: he was her cousin; his mother’s family had already moved here in the 1930s; he had been born here and his father was an American; he had agreed with her to pool together portions of their respective inheritance to buy, first, a bungalow in a neighbourhood safe with fellow Afro-Arabs, and second, a summer house near a beach.

“A bungalow!” she remembered Russel saying in that deep voice of his. He had an almost eerie quality of sounding either amused or inappropriately amused, not that he had ever tried to change it. Rayne liked that. She had even enjoyed it, a little; she knew that she herself came off as frosty most of the time.

“Yes, please, one bungalow,” he had said, smirking faintly at the orange he was peeling. He had returned from Vietnam only six months before; he hadn’t changed except for the new vague tilt to his lips, making him look perpetually distracted, and how he had taken to ambling down the street whilst whistling absently.

“Love it. Not townhouses, not Victorian bullshit, not mansions. Absolutely love it. You know why, baby?”

“No.” Rayne had recapped her pen and pushed the paper towards him. “All I know is, I can’t stand the thought of cleaning a large house.”

He’d finished signing with a flourish. The peacock. “That’s me, baby. That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”

He’d agreed with Rayne on most things. The little things like who would cook when; or how often they fucked; or if they should have an upright piano; or if they should have frankincense or potpourri for the hall table. The big things like which houses and cars to buy; or who would clean which room; or if they should use red onion or white onion; or whether to use palm oil or olive oil for sautéing; or how many kids they would have.

“Two, max,” Rayne had decided. One would be better, as long as they had a kid. Otherwise, to whom would all these property go, eventually? Some third cousins or foundations that Rayne didn’t care for? Please. She’d rather stand in the middle of a damn sandstorm.

Russel had pointed at her, nodding his head empathically. “Absolutely. Two, that’s perfect.”

Now they had one.

And only one. Because after those dreadful months of breastfeeding and changing diapers, and after that year of snatching sleep in between the baby’s incessant wailing, and after all those weeks of shaping her days around doctor’s appointments, and just the general fuss that came with babies, Rayne had sworn to never repeat the experience. Ever. So when the baby had turned two, Rayne promptly hired a nurse.

Still, there had been something else that Rayne could barely put her finger on. Something that had prevented her grudging sense of duty to curdle into mild resentment.

She wondered about it now as she put down the tray on Addie’s desk and as she smiled indulgently at the girls and at their dollhouse. They were swinging their held hands, still telling her all about the dolls’ wedding, orbiting her about the room like two exceptionally chatty satellites.

*

The church was stuffed with hymns and muted chatter. Clouds of incense hung between the gilt pillars, mingling not only with the faint scent of burning beeswax candles and the rich perfumes of the parents, but also with the cloying atrocity that was the innumerable bouquets.

With barely restrained impatience, Rayne flipped open her tasselled fan and proceeded to flap it vigourously. She had started to sweat a little under her hat. Even when she’d been a child, Rayne failed to muster any further interest in the Mass as soon as the sacramental bread – the Body – melted on the roof of her mouth.

She scanned the crowded aisles. Addie’s queue for the First Communion was moving as slowly as the other queues of fidgeting first graders.

Beside Rayne on the pew, her own mother shifted in a tinkling of gold earrings. Her white lace veil scratched against Rayne’s cheek. “There she is, Havva, look,” murmured Mother, still using Rayne’s first name. She chuckled. “The little darling. Adelaide looks just like you when you were her age.”

Rayne raised her brows.

She conceded a long look at her child. Addie’s profile was partly obscured by a white veil.

Eventually, Rayne said, “Really.”

Later as they waited for Mother’s chauffeured sedan by the car park’s fountain, Rayne found herself still peering intently at her own child. She supposed that – yes, that was her own eyes on the child. The set on the child’s mouth, that was hers too. As were the decided rise of the child’s forehead and the way the child’s nose sat between high dark cheekbones.

Well, well.

Was the child not the very spit of her? As though someone had reached deep into the marrow of her and pulled out another self?

Rayne cleared her throat. “Addie.”

Addie was standing a hand span away from her, solemn, uncertain, silent. At Rayne’s voice, she visibly snapped to attention.

“Do you want to see a movie after lunch?” said Rayne.

Addie’s eyes widened – and wasn’t that the very same shade of dark brown as Rayne’s – and she shifted her weight from one shiny black shoe to another, closing their hand span distance a little. She was gaping at Rayne.

“Well?” And Rayne added, “Have you always been this quiet, child?”

Addie kept gaping up at her for a few more heartbeats. Then she started nodding. She nodded with surprising enthusiasm. “Yeah, Mama,” Addie breathed out. She sidled ever closer to Rayne’s slack hand. “Yes, please, Mama. Thank you, Mama. That sounds fun. So much fun.”

Well. This seemed like progress.

When Rayne let the corners of her lips curl up, the answering grin on Addie’s upturned face was almost blinding.

*

Rayne leaned over the table and pointed at an item on the glossy menu. “Get that fattoush. We can’t have you eat only greasy things.”

Addie’s eyes crept from Rayne’s face to the bowl of greens.

*

Rayne pointed at the dove-grey velvet box. “They’re lovely. Would go well with you purple dress, no?”

Addie gingerly opened the box. Inside were earrings, two tiny amethysts set on silver, and a matching tiny amethyst pendant at the end of a delicate silver necklace. A child’s first jewellery box.

“They used to be mine,” added Rayne.

*

Rayne summoned Addie to her and pointed at the cluttered patio table. “Do you see the brochure?”

Addie picked it out from between Cheb Khaled, Michael Jackson, and Warda Al-Jazairia records. She flipped through it for a while, then said, “Piano lessons?”

“No one plays the piano anymore.” Rayne turned back to the orchids she was meticulously trimming. “Where’s your dad?”

*

“Mama,” a voice called out one day.

After a minute, or perhaps an hour, it repeated, “Mama.”

Rayne glanced up from the sheets of translation work spread out on her desk. When she finally registered what she was supposed to be looking at, she found that it was her daughter, lingering by her study’s open door.

“What is it?” Rayne reached for the tea pot and refilled her cup.

“I won first place in the essay writing contest.”

Just as her daughter should, Rayne thought with something like pride.

Now that she thought about it – Rayne didn’t instantly tell Addie to run along. Her daughter knew how to behave well: Addie did schoolwork when it was time to do schoolwork; Addie kept her play dates with Saadia well away from Rayne’s study; in short, everything that an infant couldn’t do by way of timetables, Addie did. Addie knew when to be quiet, but the second she saw that Rayne could favour her with attention it was like watching a carnival burst to life.

Dewy sunlight was pouring in from the windows. She spooned some honey into her black tea and, savouring the cup’s rich full-bodied aroma, Rayne took off her reading glasses and leaned back into her plush chair. She supposed she could use a bit of a break.

Rayne gestured for Addie to come closer and nudged the open box of Medjool towards her. She watched the slight tremble in her daughter’s fingers and, admittedly, it was a good sight, the way Addie’s face bloomed as soon as she bit into the chewy sweetness.

Smiling, Rayne said, “Tell me all about it, honey. What did you write in your essay?”

*

“But I realised,” Rayne told Dr. Barnett, “that it wasn’t really like that. At least not after eighty-six.”

“How so?” The doctor’s voice was gentle, as soothing as her curtains.

Perhaps, in this airy office with snug carpets and brightly coloured paintings was where Rayne had learned some gentleness.

“In retrospect,” Rayne continued, haltingly, “Addie before eight-six, well, she could be detached but the moment she had a chance to have my attention, she always turned loud, a complete zero to eleven. But only then.”

*

Addie dutifully ordered fattoush.

When the crystal bowl came she peered up at Rayne, chewed on her lip and fiddled with her napkin for a bit before saying, “Mama, may I also have a chocolate cake?”

She ate the slice of chocolate cake in neat tiny forkfuls.

*

Addie put down the dove-grey velvet box and smiled. “Thank you, Mama.”

She hovered by Rayne’s vanity table, taking in with bright eyes the set of ruby-encrusted bangles, the tubes of lippie in varying shades of red and orange, the long elegant bottles of oils and hair cream, the little box of Medjool.

“Red’s my favourite colour, too, Mama.”

*

Rayne was called to the music school where she learned, with vast displeasure, that Addie had missed forty minutes of her piano session because she had loitered in one of studios for voice lessons instead.

For heavens’ sake, Rayne couldn’t just be asked to spend her time running around after delinquent children, could she.

She ignored Addie the entire car ride home.

*

“Addie.” Rayne had reached the limits of her painfully finite patience with Russel, and she couldn’t stand the noise of the rides and the booths anymore. “Addie, come to the bathroom.”

“I don’t have to go,” said Addie.

*

Well, was she not plainly Rayne’s daughter? It was Rayne’s own reserved attitude spitefully thrown back at her, wasn’t it?

Rayne yanked her purse open and fumbled for her toilet paper.

The child was withdrawn when Russel was around, that was only understandable given Russel’s certain peculiarities, but Rayne had just realised that the child was recently withdrawn with her as well. Addie was loud but detached, now that Rayne thought about it. She knew how to perform and eke out Rayne’s attention when she could. But, to her credit, Addie was cautious about it, bordering on polite and never crossing the line; instead she asked, begged, and skulked around for a sip, for a nibble. She’d never outright refused Rayne until tonight, though.

Well, today was Addie’s eleventh birthday. Maybe this was the beginning of puberty moodiness or something.

*

Her daughter used to like plantains fried with palm oil, Rayne thought absently, still crumpling fistfuls of soothing blue curtain. Addie had loved it before 1986. Had used to roll the bottle of red palm oil on the kitchen counter whilst watching Rayne slice the plantains into oval shapes.

“Rayne?” prompted Dr. Barnett. Her voice was matter-of-fact, but never unkind. “Would you like to talk about the birthday cake now?”

“Okay.” She followed the sway of the sunflowers. Then she took another deep breath. “Yes, all right.”

*

Rayne flung the car door open. “Honey? Come on.”

Addie was looking at her with a blank face. That Thriller t-shirt was drooping off one shoulder. She hadn’t said a word all this time, not since Rayne had found her wandering by the beach, eyes wide, face upturned, watching the lightning forking through the bloated clouds. She hadn’t said a word even when Rayne scooped her up and hugged her fiercely and demanded to know where she’d been.

“Addie?”

No, not blank. And neither was it mulishness.

Uncomprehending.

“Addie,” Rayne repeated, keeping her voice steady. She swiped at the rainwater running down her face and stinging her eyes. She held out her hand. “Honey, come on, let’s get in. Come on.”

Addie stared at her outstretched hand.

Then, slowly, she put one small hand on it, palm to palm. And just as slowly, she looked back at Rayne.

She was still staring at Rayne when Rayne pulled her out of the car, unabashedly tottered and tilted towards Rayne; and when Rayne, with dismay, looked around it was to find Russel’s bloodshot eyes close by. The engine had stopped. He had got out of the car. He had even opened a large blue umbrella and was now holding it over all of them. And Rayne hadn’t noticed.

All she noticed were Addie’s bright eyes fixed on her. They stayed on her as she turned on the lights in the summer house; as she towelled Addie dry and carefully combed out Addie’s hair, things she hadn’t done in a decade; as she took Addie’s hand and led her to the kitchen.

Russel was silently sprawled on a chair. For once he looked sober. He almost looked solid, there in the stark kitchen lights whilst the summer storm raged outside. He had brought out the cake from the fridge.

They had eaten half of it before heading off to Santa Cruz beach. The cake was round, a lucky shape, and brimmed with the richness of chocolate. In vivid red loops it had said, ‘Happy Birthday Addie! Love, Mama & Papa.’

“Want more cake, birthday girl?” said Russel.

When Addie remained silent, Rayne cut out a generous slice and put it in front of her. Addie glanced away from Rayne, long enough to stare uncomprehendingly at the cherry red ‘Love’ on the slice.

Rayne cleared her throat. She cut out a similarly generous slice for herself.

Then she dug her fork into it, cream and crumbs falling apart. She started eating it.

Watching intently, Addie copied her.

At first bite a light seemed to brighten in Addie. She quickly put another in her mouth, and another, and one more, barely swallowing each greedy forkful. She wolfed down the slice in short order.

And then Addie lunged for the rest of the cake.

She tore it apart with her hands. Glops of cherry and chocolate between her fingers. Chocolate smeared on her cheeks and chin. The number 11 candle, pink and white, admired for a moment before being sucked clean of the chocolate icing stuck on its base. She ate silently, ravenously. She devoured like she hadn’t eaten in days, her eyes wide, her smile slightly crazed with surprised and distilled joy. For the first time her appetite surpassed even Rayne’s.

Rayne sat there, gripping the edge of the table. She couldn’t understand what had happened. What the hell was happening? Across from her Russel sat stunned as well. She could feel her own shock coming off him in waves.

She was startled when a sticky hand sought out her own and boldly grasped it.

Addie’s messy face was upturned, staring at her again, eyes wide and bright. Rayne repressed a shudder.

“Addie? Baby, what's wrong? Addie, tell me, Addie.”

And Rayne would always remember it. She would always remember the way Addie’s mouth quivered open and close, wordlessly and clumsily mimicking the shape of her name as Rayne said it. She would always remember how Addie never let go of her hand and even tilted towards her, snuggling one messy cheek against Rayne’s upper arm, as though hunting for warmth or for touch or for a mouthful of marrow. She would always remember the clench in her chest, the dullness spreading through her limbs, how aghast and confused she was as she thought, _Who is this? This isn't my little girl_.

_**fin** _


End file.
